Cycling Around the World by Tim & Steve

Italy, you sure are growing on me! The drivers are aggressive, but much more predictable than the French (the Spanish are still the best!). The roads are nice with quite a few bike paths and lanes. There are tons of people on bicycles in the cities, from 10 year olds to 90 year olds; it’s awesome. People are very friendly and helpful; the food is consistently good; and the weather has been amazing! I feel the most comfortable here of any of the countries so far, and that’s despite knowing Italian the least of any language; I was lazy and didn’t even practice Italian until the 3rd or 4th day. But Italians have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome.

Today we rode out from Florence, east 35km to the top of the first climb of the Giro d’Italia bike race and watched the spread-out racers suffer up the climb. We had a great vantage point, and at one point, someone from Team Sky stopped to prepare some water bottles to hand out to the racers, so we got to hear a bit of team gossip.

Since we are heading for Eastern Europe, where we expect the roads to be a bit more rough, we are swapping out our stock tires for the famous Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, known to last tens of thousands of kilometers. They are a bit heavier but have more tread and much better puncture resistance, so they will be better for gravel riding and on poor surfaces.

It must take a special kind of person to live in such a touristy place. During the day, everyone here is a tourist, and in the evenings, the towns clear out as everyone gets on the trains to go home. Only a few tourists stay around because there aren’t a lot of accommodations.

We stopped for a brioche this morning, and the owner of the place took the opportunity to turn our ignorance into a lesson, showing us what is a local brioche and what other regions call a brioche. It would be very easy to get annoyed with ignorance like ours, but we’ve found the people of Cinque Terre to be very tolerant. But not too tolerant. The sign in the shop read, “Don’t order eggs. You’re in Italy, so eat Italian food.” I like this mix of sticking to local traditions while respecting visitors. It’s a difficult combination.

We overheard a local server joke, “Cinque terre, cinque lingue”, referring to all the languages they have to understand!

Very glad we decided to slow down and take some time here, though. However, I’m looking forward to seeing some of the more local side of Italy too. The places where locals look at us funny and wonder why foreigners picked this place to come to.

Next, we are hoping to get to Florence in time to catch a stage of the Giro d’Italia bike race on Wednesday!

I was worried about the cycling up and down and up again, but apparently we’re at the point where our legs think we’re crazy and just do what they’re told, because all I have done is look around at the sights. The cycling was a no brainier. Here are some photos…

Cinque Terre is touristy, but it’s also still maintained its charm, I think. But at times I feel like we are back home for all the Californian English we hear. It’s not as overwhelmingly touristy as some places we have been, so we are enjoying it.

It’s been nice to disconnect from blogging the last few days. I hope you haven’t missed me too much. I will likely cut back to a few times a week from now on, as the mood strikes!

Our ride through Italy so far has been all about contrast. From dedicated bike paths that go on for 25km along the stunning coastline, complete with tunnels, scenic pulloffs, restaurants, and bike shops, to narrow roads full of traffic and stinky mopeds through industrial port towns.

The food had been amazing in its own right, but quite different from the rich and expensive food of France. We miss the morning croissants and other pastries, but it’s been nice to find good paninis for €4 everywhere, even in touristy places, plus €1 per scoop gelato, yummy cappuccino, delicious pasta, and heavenly pizza (but only at dinner – no pizza at lunch, it’s not possible!!).

Of course the views are stunning. My photos don’t really do it justice.

We are now cycling through the Cinque Terre towns; we decided we should cycle to all of them and are taking our time to explore, take photos, and absorb the beauty and culture. I’ll post more about that later.

Just a quick note to say that I’ve finally found myself living in the moment, and I’m loving it. I feel more present and connected to the moment on this part of our trip than I have since we left home. Unfortunately for you, that means I’m not feeling the blogging, since that involves living in the past long enough to describe what’s happened. When I’m feeling it, I’ll post more details, but just so you know, all is good, and we’ve got a cycling tour of Cinque Terre planned in a few days. Peace and love, friends!

It’s hard to believe we’ve already pedaled through the French part of our world tour.  It was a quick two weeks filled with lots of calories, a 36-hour whirlwind walking tour of Paris, and stunning coastline along the French Riviera.  It was colder than we liked and more rain than we had anticipated for this time of year, but I fell in LOVE with France for many reasons.

Merci for:

• baguettes under a euro
• crosiants, pain au chocolat, almond crosiants, beignets, and crepes
• croque monsieurs, truffles, camembert cheese, and all other cheeses we consumed
• Paris, Paris, Paris…will ? ever be the same?
• the beautiful colors of all the shutters on your homes and buildings that are actually used and functional
• Electing a new President for the majority of the people and resisting fear and racism from the other candidate.

No Merci for:

• the unfortunate bad drivers (except Patrice) that we experienced throughout our two weeks in what we thought was a cyclist friendly country
• the rain and 10-15 degrees Celsius 
• not cleaning up your dog ?

We had an amazing visit in Vitrolles with Tim’s (now my) friends Yann & Patrice.  We were able to take five rest days and get the grand tour of some of their favorite areas of Cassis, Marseille, and Aix-en-Provence.  Yann’s crepes are the best and Patrice cooks a mean sausage….Oh La La.

After we left our friends we pedaled to the stunning and picturesque French Riviera-Cote d’ Azur through the famous cities of Toulon, Cannes (where they are preparing for the 70th annual film festival coming up), Antibes, and Nice.

Today we were in 3 countries as we left Nice in an unexpected cool rain that we didn’t see in the forecast.  We had lunch in Monaco and went to the tourism office to get our passport stamped for another country, and arrived in Italy.  It was a beautiful ride all along the coast and the last 2km before our campground on the beach was cyclimg through a tunnel that used to be a railway.  It had a dedicated two-lane bike path and pedestrian paths as well.  Also throughout the tunnel were posters overhead with the history of cycling in Italy.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from France.  Looking back through my photos I didn’t take very many and blame it on the cold and rainy weather.  ?

This was the cutest site we saw on a bike path and had to turn around and just gaze at them.  I told the Mama that she had beautiful piglets and that I’d never eat bacon again.  I don’t think she believed one of those.

Cassis

Antibes

It was an interesting day in France today. The tension of the elections was ever present, lingering over every interaction with French people. Many other tourists seemed oblivious to what was going on, carefree in their photo taking, but almost every French speaker we saw was in serious conversations with friends and family about Le Pen and Macron, the police were out in huge numbers heavily armed with alarmingly large guns, and the mood was somber. This was an area that voted heavily for Le Pen, who was predicted to lose (and she did).

We enjoyed the sights of Nice, but I don’t think we really experienced its character due to this distraction. And I’m kind of thankful we will be in Italy tomorrow because I’m not typically a political person, and it will be refreshing to get away from all of this. At precisely 8pm, we were walking in the street, and an impromptu group got on a megaphone to announce the results and lament about someone with less than 25% support in the initial elections becoming president of France. Shortly after, someone walked up to us and urgently demanded something of me in French. The only words I caught were “Le Pen”. He was obviously upset. I stammered, and he repeated his demand louder. I managed to sputter “je ne comprends pas!” and he walked off muttering in an exasperated tone, “tu ne comprends pas !”

We are living in an era of human history with less violence than almost every before. People like you, me, and Steve are free and very safe to travel and experience with an open mind many other cultures all over the world, thanks to our mutual respect and support. And yet there are some who are still fearful, and I don’t understand why. Steve and I are finding the world is full of many amazing, generous, and happy people, and all it takes to be one of these people is to open your mind for a minute, listen, and respect others for who they are and what they do.

Politics aside, we enjoyed our day. It was a super easy ride, flat, on bike lanes along the coast to Nice. We had a nice lunch in Nice, did some exploring and lounged at the beach.

It’s starting to feel more like a vacation now! We are taking our time here and enjoying life as tourists.

Whenever we stop somewhere for more than one night, we can’t help ourselves in the grocery stores. We end up buying way more than we need because our appetites are so big, and everything in the shops and markets looks so good, especially in France! We often end up carrying odd things on our bikes, like 500g of dried figs that I bought in Montpellier, France, or a bag of peanuts I’ve been carrying all the way from Portugal, or Camembert cheese we didn’t finish the night before (my bag smells kind of funky at the moment). The food never goes to waste; we usually eat it all, carry it on the bikes the next day, or donate it to the supplies in the AirBNB we’ve stayed at.

Antibes has been no exception; we’re making a salad tonight so will leave some honey mustard dressing with our AirBNB host, plus we’ve got enough French cheese to weigh us down well into Italy, too many croissants, eggs we’ll eat for breakfast, brownies we found at a farmer’s market this morning, and some savory puffed pastry delicacies we found at the local boulangerie that we ate for dinner. Oh la la! Still, even with all this copious eating, our belts are getting loose; we are feeling fit and trim! Loving this lifestyle.

Speaking of food, we took advantage of our kitchen in the AirBNB this morning to make some of my egg and cheese sandwiches, but with a French twist: fried eggs and Port Salut cheese on croissants.

Here’s the salad we made for dinner: fresh greens with cherry tomatoes, figs, oranges, chèvre, whole grain mustard, and honey.

After breakfast we went for a walk around town. I found a shop that sold all sorts of sewing supplies, and they had country flag patches, so I picked up all the ones I’m missing. Now to sew these onto my bag somewhere. I decided that patches would work better than the stickers, which are falling off already.

We stumbled on a farmer’s market with lots of amazing looking fresh produce and everything else. We couldn’t resist picking up two decadent brownies and stopping for a drink and people watching.

The rain that was forecast came on strong, starting with strong winds and hail and then continuing on and off all day with bouts of thunder and minor flooding in the streets. For lunch, we had a flower-themed restaurant recommendation from our AirBNB host, so we checked it out, and it was amazing (all the flowers served are edible).

Avoiding the rain, we visited the Picasso museum, which highlights a selection of his works made while he lived here in Antibes, one of the happier periods of his life. Afterwards, we went to the post card museum, which is really interested and underrated in my opinion. You must visit if you are in Antibes. The collection of thousands of post cards from the owner’s personal collection includes historic cards from the late 1800s and early 1900s, funny ones, really fancy ones, ones with gimmicks like built-in record players, and everything in between. We were the only visitors, so he happily gave us an amazing personal tour of the collection.

While preparing dinner, we were planning tomorrow’s ride when we realized a sad mistake we’d made. The Monaco tourist office (where we will get our passport stamped) is only open 11am-1pm on Sunday. That wouldn’t give us enough time to see Nice. We had planned to see Nice, Eze, Monaco, get our passport stamped, cross into Italy, and camp tomorrow. There’s no camping or affordable lodging near Monaco, and we don’t want to rush to Monaco or to backtrack that far, so we made the decision to have a very short 20km day tomorrow and stay in Nice, where we will have more time to explore before heading to Italy on Monday.

Our campground had a convenience store next door, and at 7:30am, they got a delivery of still-warm croissants and pain au chocolat. As often as possible, this is how we start our mornings in France. I’m going to miss the croissants…

It was another beautiful day riding along the Cote d’Azur, though today we had fewer bike lanes, but not bad traffic overall, especially light in the very scenic coastal sections, but really busy after Cannes.

Thanks to our friend Darin, we had the right accessory to go with this selfie…

Steve wanted a croque monsieur for lunch at some place with a view, so we hunted around and found a cute restaurant at a quiet marina, where we shared lunch with what seemed to be a mixture of the local elite plus crewmen from the billionaire yachts anchored there. It was perfect!

We have an AirBNB in Antibes for two nights due to a 100% rain forecast for tomorrow. We are taking a rest day and visiting museums until the rain lets up, which should be Sunday.

All of France is abuzz about the elections Sunday. Half of the conversations I overheard on the street or in restaurants include Le Pen, Macron, Hollande, etc. I don’t understand enough French to get a feeling for how people are leaning, but there’s definitely a feeling of anxious anticipation right now…

After a light dinner in our AirBNB, we checked out the buzzing nightlife in town, including a few absinthe drinks at Absinthe Bar, quite tasty, and with an energetic pianist playing fun hits.

If you are ever interested in trying out bicycle touring, then we’ve found the perfect place to do it: the French Riviera is a bicycle tourist’s dream. Dedicated and well-signed bike lanes, friendly locals, English speakers everywhere, great food, amazing scenery, and campgrounds every few miles that don’t require reservations and are under 20€ per night. We could complain about the weird weather, which alternated from hot and sunny to chilly and drizzly, but I don’t think we’re allowed.

We are going to be so spoiled after a few more days like this. I hope we can force ourselves to keep moving because I want to see the rest of the world too!

We basically just cycled and did some sightseeing until we were ready to camp, which was near St. Maxime, and then we picked up stuff for dinner at a grocery store and found the next campground along the route that looked pretty good, a small beach-side place with all the expected amenities for €17. We had to take advantage of the beach, so a picnic on the beach watching the sunset was planned.